System Design

⏱ 5 min read A time series database (TSDB) is optimized for storing and querying time-stamped data — metrics, sensor readings, financial prices, event […] Read article

⏱ 6 min read Raft is a distributed consensus algorithm designed to be understandable — a deliberate contrast to Paxos, which is notoriously difficult Read article

⏱ 5 min read Exactly-once delivery means that every message is processed precisely once — neither lost (at-least-once) nor delivered multiple times (at-most-once). True Read article

⏱ 6 min read Observability is the ability to understand the internal state of a system from its external outputs. A system is observable Read article

⏱ 6 min read Backpressure is a mechanism that allows a downstream component to signal an upstream component to slow down — preventing fast Read article

⏱ 6 min read The Saga pattern is a way to manage data consistency across multiple services in a microservices architecture without using distributed Read article

⏱ 5 min read API versioning allows a service to evolve its interface without breaking existing clients. The fundamental challenge: once an API is Read article

⏱ 5 min read A service mesh is infrastructure that manages service-to-service communication in a microservices architecture. It handles cross-cutting concerns — traffic management, Read article

⏱ 6 min read Distributed tracing tracks a single request as it traverses multiple services, recording the timing and relationships of each operation. In Read article

⏱ 6 min read Data archival is the systematic movement of infrequently accessed data from primary storage to cheaper, slower storage while maintaining the Read article

⏱ 6 min read Multi-tenancy is an architecture where a single application instance serves multiple customers (tenants), with each tenant’s data isolated from others. Read article

⏱ 6 min read Chaos engineering is the discipline of intentionally injecting failures into production systems to discover weaknesses before they cause outages. The Read article

⏱ 6 min read Cache warming is the process of proactively loading data into a cache before it is needed by real traffic. Without Read article

⏱ 6 min read Load shedding is the deliberate rejection of requests when a system is overloaded — sacrificing some requests to protect the Read article

⏱ 6 min read A monitoring and alerting system collects metrics from distributed services, stores them efficiently, evaluates alert conditions, and notifies on-call engineers. Read article